


Cosmic Love

by fivehorizons



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Kinda, Kissing, Other, Pidge is aged up, Season 1 Spoilers, post-Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 08:14:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7525102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fivehorizons/pseuds/fivehorizons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pidge catches a shooting star and makes one of their own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cosmic Love

**Author's Note:**

> You should listen to Cosmic Love by Florence + the Machine before/after/while reading this…just saying
> 
> they/them for Pidge
> 
> also for the sake of preserving some people's sanity and comfort, Pidge is aged up in this. It's not explicitly mentioned but in this story my canon dubs them older.

The first star fell at midnight.

Pidge leaned against one of the castle’s pillars, wrapped in a blanket that felt no tighter than the silence and darkness around them. When the sun slipped past the horizon, every other source of light in the stretch of plains disappeared with it. Advanced light fixtures, simple candlelight—all of it had been blown out.

Gone with it was noise. Every person spoke at a whisper, every creature moved with silent grace, every plant brushed along the wind at a hiss. Nothing was loud, nothing was blinding.

Everything was the night, painted only in strokes of black and starlight.

The late hour didn’t bother Pidge. They’d been up later than this for worse reasons. They’d been up later than this for better reasons.

But they didn’t mind. Not when the rest of Team Voltron was with them, waiting alongside them and the rest of the planet. If waiting meant sleeping.

Hunk was spread out on a blanket atop the dirt. The silence must’ve scared his snores back in his chest because he didn’t make a noise while he slept. Pidge knew his snore well enough to appreciate its absence.

Shiro was in a moment of sleep. He’d been fighting valiantly against slumber, his head snapping up seconds after it lulled off to the side, but too many missions and long nights had taken him under.

Allura and Coran were inside the castle. Not because they wanted to miss the event, but to set up a grand-scale telescope for a better view and documentation. Allura had reminded Team Voltron that it wasn’t every day that they experienced Star Rain, a tradition on the planet the castle currently sat on.

Lance and Keith were propped up on the side of the castle as Pidge was. Their source of comfort came from each other. Keith leaned his cheek against Lance’s shoulder, and Lance used Keith’s head as his own pillow.

Pidge smiled at the pair. It was perfect blackmail.

They reached for the camera wrapped at Hunk’s throat. As of late, Hunk had grown fond of using the camera to snap shots of Team Voltron. Some were posed, but he preferred candid ones whether the rest of the team liked it or not.

He’d shown Pidge some shots earlier into their watch. The camera held a picture of Keith cleaning off his sword after training, another of Lance curled up on the couch while watching a scary move—of Pidge’s choosing, of course. One held Shiro and Allura deep in conversation. The image had caught Pidge’s breath but they were able to cough it off as nothing to Hunk.

One picture Hunk had taken was of Pidge grabbing Shiro’s prosthetic arm with a look of pure admiration. Their cheeks were flushed with pink, their eyes wide and glowing. Shiro stared down at them with a soft smile curving the corners of his lips.

“You must really like the Galra tech they use for his arm!” Hunk had said.

 _Yeah,_ Pidge silently mused, _it’s his arm that I like._

Which was partially true. Pidge was fascinated by Galra tech and all of its complexities.

But they were just as fascinated by Shiro.

Pidge wrapped their hand around the camera when a flicker in the celestial lights above drew their attention. They stared up and watched as a star crossed over the night, its tail streaking light at its hasty departure. Another quickly followed, and another, and another until the whole sky was alight with falling stars.

Pidge had seen shooting stars before. You didn’t need to go to a different planet to see them. And you didn’t need to be a genius to know that shooting stars weren’t even stars—just bits of dust and rock known as meteoroids that burned up as they collapsed into a foreign atmosphere. Yes, the meteors were a part of the cosmos brought to the ground, but it was nowhere as special when it was revealed that they weren’t actual stars.

But these meteors skidded so close to the surface that traces of its path landed on Pidge. Their glasses, fixed above, were brushed over with debris. When they brought off their glasses and wiped at the leftover material, they cried out in surprise.

They dropped their glasses and held out their palms. Their whole body shook as they examined their palms.

Their skin was glowing where it had touched the debris. It was a pure light that shimmered along the lines of their palms. Bursts of light danced and popped, but there was no burn to the debris.

Shiro, Keith, and Hunk were all summoned out from sleep by Pidge’s cry. Lance remained enchanted by his dreams until Keith jerked away from him.

Lance tipped over, his cheek slamming into the ground.

“Ow!” he shouted. “What the— _Dios_.”

“What the _Dios_?” Keith asked. His Spanish accent was terrible but it didn’t keep him from smirking. “That’s a new one.”

Lance’s jaw was unhinged. He got it back to working by shouting, “Look up!”

Keith did, and the wonder that entered his eyes was as luminescent as the falling stars. Shiro and Hunk were similarly enamored by the crisscross of meteors shooting in various directions. The team raised into a stand, silent in their awe. They watched the cloudless night rain stars.

Pidge rubbed their fingertips across the glow at their hands. They slid against something that didn’t feel anything like the dust and rock the falling stars were made from.

The glow spread to their fingers. It had already stained the front of their glasses, so they carefully folded them on Hunk’s blanket before standing up.

Pidge gauged a nearby meteor’s arch and velocity.

And took of sprinting from the castle.  

 

Shiro’s head was brought down from the starstorm by Pidge’s footsteps. They were already sprinting away from the team’s encampment at the castle’s side, their legs moving fast on the flat and durable surface of the castle’s rest-planet.

The castle landed next to a plain filled with golden stalks of grain that stood tall and plentiful. The towering stalks waved at the ripples of falling stars, and under the light of a close star, Pidge was swallowed into the wheat field. A knot snared around Shiro’s chest as their small body disappeared from his sight.

“Wait!”

The three other Paladins started at his shout, but they didn’t move to join Shiro as he raced after Pidge.  

If Pidge had heard Shiro’s cry, they didn’t stop. Shiro broke into the wheat stalks, and no sign of Pidge’s course existed. He ran through the wheat aimlessly, straining to hear something over the whistling stars above.

He was circling around, desperate and panting, when a pained grunt seemed to echo against the wheat walls.

Pidge.

Shiro followed the sound, his legs as fast as his heartbeat.

 _No, no,_ he thought. _I lost your dad and your brother. I’m not losing you._

He broke through a thicket of wheat and entered a clearing. In its center, Pidge sat with their feet crossed.

Laughing.

Shiro froze at the edge of the clearing, silent as Pidge cradled their hands against their chest. When they lowered them, Shiro caught a glimpse of what was clutched inside the bioluminescence of their palms.

It was a rock. Beads of light decorated its dark and uneven stone. The rest of the light had been thrown off at impact—right into Pidge.

Pidge’s torso was splattered with the rock’s light. It spread across the stretch of their hunter green sweatshirt and circled their throat like an elegant necklace layered with sparkling jewels. It even reached onto their face, which seemed more open than usual without their glasses. Their skin was dusted by the stunning glow, their freckles covered in starbursts. Even their eyelashes blinked back trickles of the light.  

Shiro didn’t know if it was the rock’s excess light that shimmered in the amber irises of Pidge’s eyes or something else.

Pidge was drenched in stardust. Shiro had never seen something so—

“Beautiful,” he whispered.

Pidge jolted at his voice. Their eyes snapped up from the rock and landed on Shiro.

“Shiro.” Pidge pushed onto their feet, the rock still cradled in their hands. “I—uh—you didn’t have to come after me.”

He didn’t. It was just because he was afraid, always so afraid that he would lose Pidge like he lost Matt and Mr. Holt. The guilt and fear gnawed at him no matter how strong Pidge was, whether in the training room or the Green Lion or in front of their computer. Pidge was strong, but Shiro hadn’t been. Not enough to save their family from Zarkon.

But he was glad that he had chased after Pidge. He was glad that he had found them like this.

“You look beautiful,” he said.

Now it wasn’t only the stardust coloring their cheeks. Underneath, Shiro caught flares of red, a color so blatant against their fair skin.

Pidge freed one hand from the fallen star to rub at the back of their neck. They dropped their stare away from Shiro.

“You don’t have to say that.”

“Why not?”

They laughed, but it wasn’t as undiluted and happy as before. Now, it rang with nervousness. “It’s just the meteor debirs. It makes dull things look nicer than they actually are.”

“No.” Pidge’s hand froze at their neck, and Shiro took a step towards them. “You’re always beautiful.”

Pidge snorted, and it sounded more real than their previous laughter. “You clearly haven’t seen me after pulling two all-nighters.”

Shiro walked closer. When Pidge made no move to back away, he came to a stand in front of them.

“I think I have. After Allura’s rescue. Remember?”

The mission had shaken the whole team, most of all Shiro. Thinking about it now made his skin crawl. He hadn’t been able to sleep in the days following the mission, so he’d spent his nights with Pidge as they ran about the castle. It was one of the only things that kept him sane. And happy.

Pidge slowly nodded but said nothing.

“I loved those nights with you,” Shiro said. “We walked around the castle, snuck into Hunk’s reserve of midnight snacks, mapped out every hallway and bedroom.”

“I made you coffee without adding sugar or creamer and you spat it all over the table.”

Shiro laughed, both parts joy and relief. “If I wanted to drink something that gross, I would’ve asked Coran to make me something. I still haven’t forgiven you for that.”

Pidge smiled, but they still weren’t looking at Shiro. “I would do it again.”

Shiro raised his eyebrow. “The coffee?”

“All of it,” Pidge breathed. “The pointless walks through the castle, the midnight snacks, the sound of your voice when you’ve been awake for over a day. I want all of it. Every night.”

“So do I.”

Shiro cupped Pidge’s head in his hands, his fingers reaching back to graze the soft hair that was just starting to grow out again.

The stardust was slick as gel against his palms, but it felt right. Not the stardust but what was under it. Pidge’s warm cheeks. Pidge’s stardust-freckled cheeks that Shiro brushed over with his thumb. Just Pidge. Everything about them.

Gently, Shiro lifted Pidge’s head so their eyes landed on his.

It wasn’t stardust in their eyes after all—it was something greater than the cosmos could give.

He kissed them, and the universe unraveled at his feet. This moment, this kiss, stripped nebulas and constellations, worlds and societies, until all that was left, all that existed, was Shiro and Pidge. Shiro and Pidge. Pidge and Shiro. And their lips meeting in a perfect fit.

As Pidge dropped the space rock they’d caught and ran their fingers along Shiro’s back and pressed deeper into the kiss, the universe returned, but it was full. There was no room for planets and moons and stars. Their kiss was enough to fill a universe of darkness with light and life.

Infinite—that was Shiro’s love for Pidge. That was what he felt like as he wrapped his hands around their body and brought them closer together.

He pulled back for a breath. There was barely a centimeter between their lips. In that space was hot, breathless gasps.

Shiro peered down at them, his eyes heavy-lidded by wonder—and desire. “Is this alright?” he asked, voice low.

Pidge answered by knotting their hand in the collar of Shiro’s and dragging him into another kiss. They held him and kissed him as if he were the last thing in the universe, and Shiro let himself be consumed by Pidge’s existence.

They ended the second kiss at the same time, both in need of breath.

But when Pidge sucked in a breath, they lost it in a burst of laughter. “Your lips!” they exclaimed.

Shiro touched the corners of his lips. There, he found the smoothness that he had felt on Pidge’s star-dusted cheeks.

His fingers came back glowing. “This,” he smiled, “is your fault.”

He dropped his hand and turned his gaze back on Pidge.

Just in time for them to brush their fingers along Shiro’s jaw. They moved in swirls—up his cheeks, across the scar on his nose, above his eyebrows—until settling back on his lips. They kept them there, their fingers trembling.

“You’re the best shooting star I’ve ever caught,” Pidge said.

They kissed again, and they didn’t stop until the sky ran out of stars.

**Author's Note:**

> You know that coffee scene Pidge alluded to. I wanna write it. All of it.


End file.
